Matematizzazione e contingenza. Il problema dello statuto delle leggi di natura nel pensiero di Quentin Meillassoux

Abstract

Mathematisation and Contingency. The Problem of natural laws Statute according to Quentin Meillassoux’s Thought Our ability to find nature’s necessary laws has traditionally been based on the possibility to express natural beings’ properties in mathematical terms. In his groundbreaking book After finitude, Quentin Meillassoux turns this assumption upside down, arguing that we can prove the absoluteness of mathematical (quantifiable) properties thanks to the absolute contingency of natural laws – contingency that can be proved as well. On this basis Meillassoux tries to reconnect philosophical thought with hard sciences, and to escape from the “ptolemaic revolution” he sees in Kant’s transcendental turn. Aim of this paper is to give account of Meillassoux’s philosophical attempt starting from his first book and up to his latest papers. My thesis is that Meillassoux endorses a very one-sided interpretation of modern science, and that his attempt to reintroduce the distinction between primary and secondary qualities on the basis of his “principle of factuality” is – at least at the moment – still inconclusive.

Keywords

• natural law
• Quentin Meillassoux